Comments on: The Ugly Truth About Recycling In Chicago

By: devin90

devin90 — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:18:35 +0000

There was a gigantic hill out in Bolingbrook, IL. in the middle of a wonderful forest preserve area. I came to find out that the hill was indeed a covered up and SEALED landfill.

I talked to my mother, who works for Waste Management, and she said it actually is completely sealed, except for the piping that they harvest methane gases from.

So it doesn't pose any danger of leachate contamination in the surrounding water and soil. It does provide a gigantic barren hill in the middle of a forest preserve : )

p.s. - yea, the blue bag recycling program is a joke. It just goes in with the regular garbage and is crushed, etc. Then they grab an occasional ripped bag. There was a big news story about this last year.

By: Missy

Missy — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:25:30 +0000

Hey, Alison:
Another Chicagonite, sweet. Wow, a golf course created on a landfill. Hmm, i wonder which one? LoL. I can’t imagine they would create something so beautiful, on a spot that was not clean and healthy to begin with. What a scary concept. It makes no sense, but maybe they did clean it up some, before creating the golf course.

In any case, nice to see you commenting.

By: Alison

Alison — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 20:19:09 +0000

Being born and raised in the Chicago area, the landfill problem is something I have heard about here and there. I believe cook county and the surrounding areas need to make a better, healthier and permanent solution.

In my hometown, one way they dealt with a landfill was covering it in sod and turning it into a golf course. While this was an innovative way to solve the problem, I feel like it only really “covered” up the real mess. I still cringe just thinking of what toxins, chemicals, and other hazardous materials have since been filtering into the surrounding soil, and tangentially, our water sources.